1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to improvements in both land line-, and cellular based telephone services.
2. Background
Many telephone customers currently have more than one type of telephone service to handle their many communication needs, considering the mobile and transitory nature of today's society. In addition to having one or more land line-based (accommodating both corded and cordless devices) telephone numbers, it is not uncommon for one or more members of the typical household to have one or more cellular telephone-based telephone numbers.
For convenience and reduction of confusion, it is desirable for a telephone customer to be able to place and receive telephone calls for both land line and cellular based service from the same handset or same group of handsets. The prior art has addressed this problem by developing special cordless handsets having dual, separate transceiver circuitry for both land line and cellular service. A customer having such a prior art device can therefore switch back and forth between transceivers to communicate under both types of services.
The above-described prior art approach has many disadvantages, not the least of which are the high cost and complexity of the special handsets needed. Not only are the handsets in such a system expensive, but the customer must still maintain both land line based and cellular based telephone services. Additionally, calls using such a system can only be handled using an expensive handset, requiring (at least in larger homes) multiple ones of the expensive handsets in a household.
In view of the aforementioned problems with the prior art, what is needed, but not taught nor suggested by the prior art are a telephone system in which the customer can freely carry the handset external to his/her home to receive and initiate cellular based telephone calls, and can receive and initiate telephone calls at home from multiple locations without the necessity of always using an expensive handset for land line telephone service.